Red Lily, the — Complete eBook

“As you wish. But I should prefer that
you keep the blue room for Paul Vence, who wishes
to come. It is possible, too, that Choulette may
come without warning. It is his habit. We
shall see him some morning ringing like a beggar at
the gate. You know my husband is mistaken when
he thinks Le Menil pleases me. And then I must
go to Paris next week for two or three days.”

CHAPTER XXIX

JEALOUSY

Twenty-four hours after writing her letter, Therese
went from Dinard to the little house in the Ternes.
It had not been difficult for her to find a pretext
to go to Paris. She had made the trip with her
husband, who wanted to see his electors whom the Socialists
were working over. She surprised Jacques in the
morning, at the studio, while he was sketching a tall
figure of Florence weeping on the shore of the Arno.

The model, seated on a very high stool, kept her pose.
She was a long, dark girl. The harsh light which
fell from the skylight gave precision to the pure
lines of her hip and thighs, accentuated her harsh
visage, her dark neck, her marble chest, the lines
of her knees and feet, the toes of which were set
one over the other. Therese looked at her curiously,
divining her exquisite form under the miseries of her
flesh, poorly fed and badly cared for.

Dechartre came toward Therese with an air of painful
tenderness which moved her. Then, placing his
clay and the instrument near the easel, and covering
the figure with a wet cloth, he said to the model:

“That is enough for to-day.”

She rose, picked up awkwardly her clothing, a handful
of dark wool and soiled linen, and went to dress behind
the screen.

Meanwhile the sculptor, having dipped in the water
of a green bowl his hands, which the tenacious clay
made white, went out of the studio with Therese.

They passed under the tree which studded the sand
of the courtyard with the shells of its flayed bark.
She said:

“You have no more faith, have you?”

He led her to his room.

The letter written from Dinard had already softened
his painful impressions. She had come at the
moment when, tired of suffering, he felt the need
of calm and of tenderness. A few lines of handwriting
had appeased his mind, fed on images, less susceptible
to things than to the signs of things; but he felt
a pain in his heart.

In the room where everything spoke of her, where the
furniture, the curtains, and the carpets told of their
love, she murmured soft words:

“You could believe—­do you not know
what you are?—­it was folly! How can
a woman who has known you care for another after you?”

“But before?”

“Before, I was waiting for you.”

“And he did not attend the races at Dinard?”

She did not think he had, and it was very certain
she did not attend them herself. Horses and horsey
men bored her.